1. Field of The Invention
The invention relates to a process for producing aquafuel by using carbon fiber bundle electrodes, and in particular, to a process for producing aquafuel by auto-feeding flexible carbon fiber bundle electrode in an electrolytic reaction, wherein said flexible carbon fiber bundle electrodes are formed by impregnating flexible, tough carbon fibers with a resin and said electrode can be used sustainedly in the electrolytic reaction of water under low voltage for a long period of time.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the early stage of searching for new energy sources, coal had been reacted with water to produce clean water gas energy, while, in the later stage, electrolysis of water has been utilized to produce clean hydrogen energy. In the reaction of electrolyzing water, an arc can be generated in the water if carbon bars are used as the electrodes and the distance between electrodes is reduced. Because of the great amount of heat generated by the arc, carbon may involve in the decomposition reaction of water so that the electric energy required to supply for electrolyzing water can be significantly reduced. This renders water electrolysis a good potential method for providing energy sources.
Although electrolytic reaction of water by using carbon bars as electrodes can lower greatly the power supply, the carbon electrodes become a consumptive materials which must be supplemented continuously in the course of reaction. In fact, it is not easy to supply the inflexible long carbon bar used in commercial applications doe to space limitation.
Production of clean hydrogen energy by reacting coal or other solid carbonaceous fossil fuel with water had been the subject of efforts by scientists in the early 1960s.
In the early stage, carbon and water should be heated to 800.degree. C. for reacting into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. It has been found later that electrolysis of water can produce clean hydrogen, too. However, to generate one mole of hydrogen it should consume an amount of energy of 56.7 kcal.
Coughlin and Farooque (Nature, 279, 301, 1979) proposed an electrolytic reaction of water in a coal slurry by using platinum bar as electrodes and sulfuric acid as the electrolyte, whereby, because the involvement of carbon in the reaction, energy input required for generating one mole of hydrogen can be reduced from the above-said 56.7 kcal down to 9.5 kcal. Dammann in U.S. Pat. No. 5,159,900 (1992) disclosed the production of hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide through the generation of an arc in water by means of carbon bars and used those gases to drive an internal combustion engine, wherein, gases produced in said reaction are water and carbon dioxide.
Richardson in U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,274 (1995) disclosed power generation by using the gas produced through an arc in water by means of carbon electrode bars, wherein the electric power thus generated is five times more than that of input. Maflove (Infinite Energy, 9, 44, 1996) reported the above-said system, which can generate an arc with a temperature ranging from 3000.degree. C. to 4000.degree. C. to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen that reacts with carbon of carbon electrodes to produce aquafuel gases.
In the combustion of those aquafuel gases for power generation, the ratio of air to aquafuel gases is 3:1 to 5:1. The waste gas produced therefrom is astonishingly lower than that produced from combustion of gasoline so that a cleaner waste gas can be obtained. This renders it a good potential method of energy source production and utilization.
In the above-described systems for generating aquafuel gases, carbon electrode bars and water are consumptive raw materials that must be supplemented continuously in the course of aquafuel production.
In general, water supply is easier whereas the supply of inflexible long carbon bars might be more difficult after a long period of utilization.
Accordingly, a problem of carbon electrode supplementing has arisen in the above-said systems for producing aquafuel. In view of this, it is desirable to use a flexible carbon electrode to overcome the problem associated with sustained uses over a long period of time.